Apple's iPhone 4S sold four million units in its first weekend of sales. But the entire rugged phone industry sells only half as many devices over the course of an entire year.

That's a good definition of niche market, according to figures from IDC, and one that's noticeably lacking in smartphones. We spoke with Sonim's CEO Bob Plaschke about his company's line of rugged phones, how the likes of Motorola and Samsung are trying to compete, and why we haven't seen a truly rugged smartphone—yet.

Cult following

Sonim has a made a nice living over the past few years selling ruggedized feature phones to users in security industries, oil and gas utilities, agriculture, and heavy manufacturing—fields where typical phones just won't cut it.

These people want a phone that can last an entire day outdoors without a power source; a screen they can still see outdoors; buttons or touch functionality that are responsive enough to be used with a glove; or a speaker that can ring incredibly loud.

"All those things you can't find in an Otterbox, you can't find in a case for iPhone," Plaschke says, attempting to dispel the notion that ruggedization is only about build quality and weatherproofing. Device protection is a big deal in the consumer market, but it's only half the battle as far as business users in the field are concerned.

Meeting spec

As we previously covered, ruggedized phones are often built to adhere to a number of industry standards for dust, water, and drop protection. The problem is that these protections require materials and construction that aren't found in your typical smartphone. This can pose a financial burden on manufacturers when the market for rugged phones is so small.

"We couldn't convince the large OEMs like Samsung or Motorola to build ruggedized phones for this class of folks," Plaschke says of years past. "They were willing to put some rubber on the phones, around the edges and make it waterproof, but they weren't willing to build to the specifications that these folks who work outdoors demand."

Of course, times have changed, and the likes of Samsung, Motorola, and even Casio are now making ruggedized smartphones that adhere to industry specs—with the promise of surviving low-temperatures and four-foot drops. But Plaschke feels there are still certain areas where smartphone ruggedness falls flat, at least when compared to the standards met by previous Sonim phones.

Making better glass

What's interesting is that, unlike most smartphones equipped with Gorilla Glass, Sonim's phones are produced with a different variation of the Corning formula—a formula that is about twice as thick, and stronger too.

"For us, at 2mm, if you drop it on a rock it doesn't break," says Plaschke. "All Gorilla Glass is very scratch resistant—ours just happens to be very, very difficult to break. You can hammer a nail and not break it."

However, there's a good reason why Gorilla Glass is so thin on a typical smartphone—it's because of touch. Capacitive touchscreens require the screen to be thin enough that the human body's electrical signals can be detected accurately by the digitizer underneath, something that becomes more difficult with Sonim's thicker glass. Worse still, Plaschke says his customers want a device that can be used just as easily with or without gloves, a feature most current smartphones struggle to provide. This will improve over time, of course (Corning's Gorilla Glass 2 is said to be even stronger than its predecessor, despite measuring a scant 0.8 mm). But for now it's one of a true rugged smartphone's biggest hurdles—next to battery life, that is.

Battling battery woes

Dismantle an iPad, and you'll see that the entire device is practically one giant battery. With a device footprint of that size, a long-lasting battery life is easy to hide. But when you enter smartphone territory, you have to work with the space you're given—which is actually quite small. This is partly due to manufacturing demands, where the standardized layout of internal components can't be always be adapted to accept non-standard battery sizes easily or cheaply.

Consumers, however, also play a part. Consumer demand for thinness means that a typical smartphone "has to weigh under 100g with a surface area of 100mm or less" to fit comfortably in a pant pocket, Plaschke says. "If you want to stay inside those constraints, you're limited to the size of the battery."

That's a problem, because Sonim phones typically offer two-to-three times more battery life than a typical feature phone—to the extent that his company's current line of phones offer up to 22 hours of talk time, or over one month of standby.

"That's a little bit longer than you're going to get with a typical smartphone," he laughs.

"So when I say we don't compete with the Samsung Rugbys or the Defys, it's because they're not thick, and they'll never get thick. Until we believe we can get 16 hours of battery life on an Android phone, it doesn't make sense to launch."

I don't get why Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass! Seriously, I can't imagine it would raise the price by more than a few bucks!

They use the same material without the brand. Considering that Jobs was the one that pushed the material into production, I imagine they could get a sweetheart deal on the brand if they wanted to. However, you'll notice that Apple doesn't push any branding but Apple on their devices-- they might tell you what processor an imac has, but you won't see an 'Intel inside' logo or any of the other little sticker badges that usually decorate a Dell.

So yeah the 'no gorilla glass' thing is one of the most vacuous talking points there is, unless you really care about the trademarks, and not the material, of your phone.

"Apple's iPhone 4S sold four million units in its first weekend of sales. But the entire rugged phone industry sells only half as many devices over the course of an entire year."

This is a horribly misleading piece of journalism, given Apple's propensity for building anticipation then opening the floodgates with the sole purpose of breaking sales records.

However, the iPhone represents the lion's share of the high-end mobile market; so it would actually be a fair comparison to judge the entire rugged phone industry's sales figures versus the iPhone (all models) annually.

I don't get why Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass! Seriously, I can't imagine it would raise the price by more than a few bucks!

Apple does use Gorilla Glass on the iPhones, it just doesn't advertise that fact.

You can tell they DON'T use it by the picture at the top of this article. Broken screens are an issue with the iPhone, i.e., they don't use Gorilla Glass.

If you feel otherwise, post a source.

As far as Apple using Gorilla Glass, they mention Corning in their job creation page: http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/They also mention Corning in several other reports. Corning makes several types of display glass. EAGLEXG is for the LCD panel itself. Lotus is for OLED displays, and Gorilla Glass is for the front of the phone. Apple would be working with corning for Gorilla Glass. The LCD manufacture would be working with Corning for the LCD panel.

Gorilla Glass certainly isn't indestructible, but it is strong. However, if you hit it in the right spot, it will be weaker or simply shatter much more easily. Usually this is along the edge and not the pane. Much like a pane of tempered glass shattering in a million tiny pieces when you hit it along the edge, any pane of glass will be weak along one side of it. Breaking the glass on a smartphone is just unlucky.

To me that seems like it would be the biggest reason why you won't see rugged smartphones, they're advancing too fast at the moment that the sacrifices of cost, size and eventually being considered too slow in comparison to what future phones will have just makes it not worth it. "Dumbphones" now stay the same for the most part, there isn't really anything new to them and no one worried about how fast they are or what you can do with them aside from the basics so when someone gets one of the rugged versions they know they won't be missing out on anything in the future.

Simple. because rugged phone look ugly. Please make a rugged phone as pretty and well polished as iphone. Pretty product sells, you know. Human naturally attracted to pretty things. Even a baby can tell the difference between ugly and beautiful.

I bet that Apple could build an iPhone that was waterproof and nearly impervious to any typical drops. But the tradeoff of that would likely be having a much smaller battery life or a phone that was much, much thicker to accomodate thicker glass and more support.

I think that for the most part, most people would not want to make that tradeoff and would rely on their cases in rough environments.

"Apple's iPhone 4S sold four million units in its first weekend of sales. But the entire rugged phone industry sells only half as many devices over the course of an entire year."

This is a horribly misleading piece of journalism, given Apple's propensity for building anticipation then opening the floodgates with the sole purpose of breaking sales records.

However, the iPhone represents the lion's share of the high-end mobile market; so it would actually be a fair comparison to judge the entire rugged phone industry's sales figures versus the iPhone (all models) annually.

I didn't mean that in a disparaging way—rather, I simply wanted an easy to understand metric for the sake of scale. That a single model of a popular phone can sell more units in a weekend than an entire product segment can in a year is a pretty good way to illustrate just how small a niche we're talking about here. Nothing more.

Rugged phones are ugly, heavy, bulky, and generally only have a basic feature set. That's how the oil derrick workers like them. My phone can access Google, which is why I like it. What's the problem with having different products for different markets?

For the rugged market, a lot of times all they're really looking for is a Walkie-Talkie that doesn't run out of range. Cheap phone plans are also a plus. They don't need to play Angry Birds or look up the syntax for a C++ STL string operation on the fly. As the article pointed out, the design considerations for a rugged phone and a feature packed svelte smartphone are at odds, so it doesn't make sense to try to cater to both markets at once. You'll end up with a half-baked hybrid device that satisfies nobody.

I don't get why Apple doesn't use Gorilla Glass! Seriously, I can't imagine it would raise the price by more than a few bucks!

Um, Apple is the one that got Corning to fire up the plant to make it. Corning had developed it, but hadn't manufactured it as they couldn't find a use.

A quote about the subject.

Quote:

In 2006, Apple Inc. was developing what was to be the first model of the iPhone. Though initially it was to have a hard plastic screen, Steve Jobs found that when placed in his pocket his keys scratched the prototype's surface. Jobs was outraged and resolved to find a glass that was scratch-resistant enough that iPhone buyers wouldn't have the same problem.[6][7]

Jobs ended up contacting the CEO of Corning, Wendell Weeks and told him that Apple needed a light yet strong enough glass screen for use in their consumer devices. Weeks told him of the "gorilla glass" that the company had developed in the 1960s but had since been mothballed. Jobs convinced Weeks to immediately put the glass into production for use in the upcoming iPhone. Despite initial skepticism on Weeks' part that Corning could do so and also be able to manufacture enough screens in time for the iPhone's pending release, they did in fact achieve these aims within six months. Corning's Harrodsburg, Kentucky factory was able to supply enough "gorilla glass" screens for Apple's iPhone release in June 2007.[5]

Simple. because rugged phone look ugly. Please make a rugged phone as pretty and well polished as iphone. Pretty product sells, you know. Human naturally attracted to pretty things. Even a baby can tell the difference between ugly and beautiful.

I guess, but some of us hate the "form over function" in favor of more functionality, even if the device looks like the ass-end of satan.

In particular, I'm thinking about a device that won't break when dropped, and one that can ride on a motorcycle out in the elements as a GPS map and survive a heavy rainstorm without needing a bunch of lame plastic covers and other junk. I'd even take reduced screen resolution if it meant better battery life.

Can't wait until smartphones become more like desktop PC's, where you can mix-n-match parts to kit it out the way you want. I'd sacrifice so much crap for extended battery life, it's not even funny. Then again, I'm such an outlier on the bellcurve it's not even funny.

I know this is a minor point, but a previous poster was correct in saying Apple does not use Gorilla Glass (tm), but they use a very similar formula from Corning to make similar strength glass. It's possible it could be the same exact product without the branding.

As far as phone glass being rugged, I think a common issue that is overlooked is how the glass is housed in the phone. Many times a phone will be dropped on its side, but the energy of impact is transferred to the glass, which shatters. You can reduce the amount of shattering by improving the housing around the glass, which is exactly why people put huge cases (such as otterbox) on their phone.

It would be interesting to see if there can be a compromise in glass resilience vs an increased resilience/shock absorption of the casing materials.

1. Apple uses gorilla glass. Gorilla glass is extremely scratchproof, but not particularly shatterproof. The Ip4/4s probably breaks more than some other phones because the glass comes flush to the edge.

2. There's just not a huge market for ruggedized phones. And for people who occasionally need a phone to be rugged are probably better served by using a case from Pelican or another similar manufacturer. Like people do with cameras, for example. This, plus a bluetooth headset (or even earbuds) will be more rugged than any ruggedized phone - but you can also use it in standard configuration.

If battery size is such a significant factor, could one not separate the battery from the phone itself? Perhaps one could use an inductive charging hip holster or a direct wire connection to the phone (though the latter might involve more tradeoffs in water and dust resistance).

While I could see advantages for a larger display in a rugged smart phone, requiring the use of a touch screen interface would prevent its use with gloved hands. Speech recognition and a modest number of buttons might allow the use of many smart phone features without the need to use a touch screen. It might be possible to have a removable overlay for the touch screen to allow use of a large visual area during 'rugged' use while being able to use the touch screen when the danger to the phone is less. Would it be possible to have a less sensitive touch screen [pressure not capacitive?] with a thick glass that could communicate touches to the sensitive touch screen? (Such would not support a lot of the subtle interface features but simple on-screen button pressing could be supported.)

By the way, do any phones provide voice-based text messaging? Such would seem like a modestly useful feature. Likewise text-to-speech might have some use--in theory one could even use the sender's voice pattern to 'read' the text message.

(Just some thoughts. I do not even have a cell phone, so my ignorance is vast.)

The article sort of talks around the subject, but I think the point is that there are no really rugged smart phones because there just isn't demand for them. People out in the field where a ruggedized phone would be useful just don't spend time on them browsing the web, and email/text messages plus voice meet their communication needs and are available on feature phones. The screen on a smart phone is just too small to be useful for something like showing documentation, maps, taking notes, etc. when you are working (i.e., not able to just sit there with your phone a foot from your face).

I think they would see a much better market for a ruggedized tablet; something big enough to be useful for displaying maps, recording data, reviewing documentation, etc. Basically, replace that massive metal clipboard I had to carry everywhere and you're golden. Just throw in bluetooth for voice calls, plus a really good (loud) speakerphone (it's a PITA to take ear protection out and put it back in every time some idiot calls you). Of course, as pointed out in the article, you run into issues with the touch screen receptors and the thicker glass (and likely gloves) necessitated by a rugged tablet. Get all those figured out at a reasonable price point and you'll have engineering/construction/environmental companies lining up to buy them for all field staff - which still won't give you anything like the numbers a consumer-oriented device might expect (which means it's tough to get the price point down, which means it might just be cheaper for your customers to get the regular consumer-grade stuff and assume it will be replaced 2-3 times per year).

If battery size is such a significant factor, could one not separate the battery from the phone itself? Perhaps one could use an inductive charging hip holster or a direct wire connection to the phone (though the latter might involve more tradeoffs in water and dust resistance).

While I could see advantages for a larger display in a rugged smart phone, requiring the use of a touch screen interface would prevent its use with gloved hands. Speech recognition and a modest number of buttons might allow the use of many smart phone features without the need to use a touch screen. It might be possible to have a removable overlay for the touch screen to allow use of a large visual area during 'rugged' use while being able to use the touch screen when the danger to the phone is less. Would it be possible to have a less sensitive touch screen [pressure not capacitive?] with a thick glass that could communicate touches to the sensitive touch screen? (Such would not support a lot of the subtle interface features but simple on-screen button pressing could be supported.)

By the way, do any phones provide voice-based text messaging? Such would seem like a modestly useful feature. Likewise text-to-speech might have some use--in theory one could even use the sender's voice pattern to 'read' the text message.

(Just some thoughts. I do not even have a cell phone, so my ignorance is vast.)

There are external battery packs for iPhones, and most of the larger selling Android phones that double as a protective case for those that need it. Most people don't, and have 'standardized' sorta on the current battery sizes.

As expensive as the ruggedized phones are, you could make a case for having several cheap regular phones for less money and sim swapping as needed. That would limit you to AT&T plus T-Mobile though.

Thick glass? Sure, but then what is the size of the market? If it is 1% or 2% then the costs to manufacturer it, and keep in line with other offerings is out the window.

All Smart Phones can be operated by voice to greater or lesser effect. Been that way for a while.

A lot of this seems bent towards Sonim's interests. For example, a Galaxy S2 has a bigger battery than a lot of Sonim's phones (going by their spec page. The RAZR MAXX has a far larger battery), however they save power via a 2" screen and low end hardware. Plus from what I can see they mostly use 1.5mm glass, rather than the 1mm in most smart phones, but the fact it's covering a significantly smaller area gives it more strength, rather than the thickness alone.

Plus the "less than 100g" line doesn't seem strongly fact checked, none of the most popular phones on the market weigh under this.

I don't think there's the barriers to entry except for demand. Samsung aren't interested in designing and supporting a line of phones for a small market that has manufacturers already. It's going to be expensive to make each phone and difficult to make a high profit without the cost blowing out.

Even if it's a niche, the wonderful thing about Android is that sooner or later a smaller player, perhaps Sonim, should be able to fill it and include a full featured OS. It's there to use for free, and smaller processes will make it cheaper to manufacturer a device as well as allowing more physical room to play with the design (or be less optimized).

Eventually materials science should catch up to this either way, and as things mature manufacturers are more likely to spread out into small niches. But for the time being this is just the expected response in a very rapidly evolving and competitive market. It's a big land rush right now.

Tundro Walker wrote:

I guess, but some of us hate the "form over function" in favor of more functionality, even if the device looks like the ass-end of satan.

Well, some of us aren't a fan of this meme either. It's a handheld device: form is function. There is no separation, all the various pieces combine to make for the functionality of the device. These aren't minitowers; the physical dimensions absolutely matter.

Quote:

Can't wait until smartphones become more like desktop PC's, where you can mix-n-match parts to kit it out the way you want.